Engineering Education

[selenite0]

As a counterpoint to the previous lament about the lack of American engineering students, Tech Central Station printed someone's description of being an engineering student. High demands, incompetent teaching, huge classes. Yeah, that probably drives a lot of good would-be engineers out of the profession. I was lucky that I went to a small school where the professors teach instead to a huge one where they never talk to undergrads. The feedback on the article was a mix of "me, too" and "that's normal, suck it up, crybaby." The latter pissed me off enough that I posted this:

It's amazing how so many working engineers tolerate a level of incompetence in teaching that they would consider criminally negligent in a co-worker. If good material is ground up and spat out by a machine tool, that's a problem to be fixed, not a standard cost of doing business.

One thing I'd like to change in engineering education is changing the focus from easy to grade formal math and analysis (thermodynamics, aerodynamics, advanced stress calculation) toward dealing with the fuzzier parts of the job. Figuring out requirements, designing something that meets them, and testing whether it does the job right once built is what engineers spend most of their time doing. Damn few engineers do calculus on the job.

The creeping increase in math-intensive required courses has been making engineering degrees harder to get and driving out useful material (design, drafting, communication skills) that don't have the same calculus-driven prestige. Unfortunately that's what we use on the job the most, not calculus. This trend has been going on for a long time. Hopefully we can turn it back before it destroys the profession. Or maybe we'll just have to create start-ups that train their own engineers through apprenticeships, bypassing the accredited universities completely.

Comments

[joyeuse13.livejournal.com]

Re: "that's normal, suck it up, crybaby."

I hate that response; the fact that "everyone has to deal with it" doesn't make it right. I figured that out way back in high school when adults tried to palm me off with "that's the way it works in college." Since when is that an excuse for lousy teaching? (When I got to college, btw, I noticed that usually whatever they had been talking about wasn't done the same way.)

The corollary to "that's normal, suck it up, crybaby" is, "What makes you so special, that you think you shouldn't have to?" to which my response is, "I'm no more special than you are--why aren't you as pissed off about this as I am?"

[ernunnos.livejournal.com]

The incompetent teaching is definitely true. If the class average is below 50% on an exam, the information obviously isn't being conveyed. Passing those students on a curve is the equivalent of social promotion in elementary and high schools. It doesn't actually produce people who understand the material and are prepared to absorb more.

However I see one very troubling item in that article as well. "My first-semester GPA was the engineering major average: 2.7. But to a former academic superstar, a 2.7 GPA was akin to a public flogging."

A 2.7 in a difficult subject, including accelerated courses really isn't bad. I'm afraid that by promoting self-"uh"-steem in high schools, trying to tell everyone that they're a "gifted" A-student, we're making it impossible for them to go into a field where they're going to have to work hard just to be average.

[noumignon.livejournal.com]

I'm told that sub-50% tests are a social norm among physics professors in high-end programs. As long as they grade it on a curve, I'd be okay with that.

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

Anecdote: when I was a freshman, I signed up for the innocuously titled "Math 250" at UMD. The appropriate title should have been "take freshmen who think they know math and flunk'em" - it used the Principles of Mathematical Analysis book by Rudin, and of the 43 students who started the class, only 17 finished, and only 5 went on to the second semester.

I remember noticing that the UofU treated that book as appropriate for a 500-level class and thinking "no wonder that was so hard..."

But in any case, the teaching was almost completely impenetrable.

[ernunnos.livejournal.com]

Oh I know it is. Or at least was. (My major was computer science engineering, and I had a lot of friends in physics.) But I'm still not ok with it. The point should be promoting comprehension, not just weeding out the weakest. That will happen anyway.

[ernunnos.livejournal.com]

That looks like a good book though.

[sraun]

There was a physics prof at Michigan Tech that gave weekly multiple guess quizzes - this was the freshman level Physics for Engineers course. One of the "wrong" answers on every question was 'did all the math right, but forgot to change the calculator from degrees to radians'. One of the other things he did was try to make his students approximate, so that they'd have some idea if they were in the right ballpark. The quizzes were brutal, but didn't affect the final grade as much. Also, all the profs (I think there were usually four different professors teaching that course every year) used the same mid-term and final, and his skill showed up there - his sections usually scored better than average on the big tests.

I remember a story about one of my former bosses - civil engineer doing flood analysis, using a standard program developed by the US Army Corps of Engineers. Their boss pointed out a significant error in their analysis of the flood from a dam failure - flood stage a half-mile downstream was higher than the water level behind the dam. They went back and checked their data - definitely one of those things that teach you that you can't blindly trust the computer!

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

It's a fantastic book, although quite terse. I'm not sure that I'd recommend it for 18-year-olds, but if you've got a hankering for some ordered set theory, Rudin's your man...

[xinef.livejournal.com]

Ok, so what do you recommend that a student, now in Grade 10 and definitely interested in a career in engineering, should do?

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

Just don't let the math get him/her down - there'll be a lot of it, and it's hard work, but there are solutions at the end (unlike social sciences...) ;)

[xinef.livejournal.com]

So far, he's relatively strong at math and enjoys it (gets that from both parents!), so that isn't likely to be an issue.

[thegameiam.livejournal.com]

cool. I think the best math book is Mathematics for the Million - it was the first experience with calculus which really made sense for me.

That and some books by Douglas Hofstadter and Martin Gardner should do...

Take selenite's advice

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

Look for a teaching college (like Harvey Mudd) rather than a "presige" college for undergraduate work.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Good question. The answer is turning into another post, which should be up soon.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

And here it is:
http://www.livejournal.com/users/selenite/106507.html

[toshfraggle.livejournal.com]

Heh I remember that decimals to radians thing...

My favorite was a EE class wherein we were supposed to make some sort of switch from polar coordinates to decimals to something else and back to answer problems on our calculators. This was supposed to be covered in calc 2. My calc 2 instructor was a hired lecturer who did a unit on probability instead. The professor wouldn't help me, none of the math teachers I hadn't had would answer my questions, the guys in the learning center didn't remember how to do it--I was screwed. Other classmates would run through it quickly, but I still didn't really understand what was going on.

Yeah so I ended up getting my masters in English, and I write articles that are read nationwide on how to teach technology, and how not to. Go figure. *shakes head*

How to be a really good engineer

[(Anonymous)]

Once upon a time I faced the question: What do I need to know to be a good engineer? I didn't know the answer, but I figured that if I went to a school that focused on the students it would be better. After much checking, I picked Harvey Mudd, and though I'm *STILL* paying off the loans, it was a great experience. I didn't know much, then, but I knew I wanted a real education, not just a bunch of classes.

Now I run a company that, among other things, does medical device development for a lot of clients. Now I can make a list.

1) Take the minimum amount of maths you can get away with. Unless you want to get a PhD and teach, don't do like I did and take every systems engineering course offered (passed the last one, grandpa stems, with a D+, and I *earned* that D+). Only a very small subset of engineers do hard maths, you'll never use a tensor again for the rest of your life -- this is why we have computers, so the engineers have time to think instead of doing calculations.

2) Do projects. Work on teams. Learn to lead, learn to follow. Knock the rough edges off. Learn to listen. Discover how many people are smarter than you in some way.

3) Take every essay writing seminar course you can fit in that deals with econ, philosophy, history, or similar subjects where the professors demand good argument and language. When you are a senior engineer, you're going to have to write a lot of reports and proposals -- start learning now.

4) Take a dance class or acting or something to get comfortable being on stage. Presentations to big groups can be nerve wracking. If you can find courses on speaking, take them *IF* they require lots of podium time.

5) Learn to program in LISP or SCHEME -- this will teach you a kind of rigorous logical thinking that is invaluable.

6) Get rid of your calculator and us a slide rule. With a slide rule you have to keep track of your 10^N in your head, and you'll be forced to learn the valuable skill of estimating.

Real engineering: proposal (lotsa work), design (some work), validation (more work than you would believe). Lather, rinse, and repeat.

Re: How to be a really good engineer

[selenite.livejournal.com]

I'm all for 1-5, with a few caveats. Non-mathematical systems engineering classes (requirements analysis, trade studies, architecture design) are very useful. I got my public speaking training from Air Force ROTC and historical reenactment groups, I suspect church groups might be good for that too. I've never had a chance to learn LISP, but some programming is necessary these days.

As for slide rules . . . I can't see them being that useful today. The math I have to deal with isn't logarithms, it's big multi-variable problems that need linear algebra or a simulator to tackle. Estimating is an important skill but I doubt that's the best way to get there.